Re: cannot write std::map via ostream_iterator?

From:
"Bo Persson" <bop@gmb.dk>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Fri, 29 Oct 2010 08:14:50 CST
Message-ID:
<8itnvqF6moU1@mid.individual.net>
James K. Lowden wrote:

Can you tell me why the program below does not compile? GCC says:

$ make mapout.o
c++ -O2 -c mapout.cpp
/usr/include/g++/bits/stream_iterator.h: In member function `
  std::ostream_iterator<_Tp, _CharT, _Traits>&
std::ostream_iterator<_Tp,

  _CharT, _Traits>::operator=(const _Tp&) [with _Tp =
  std::pair<const std::string, std::string>, _CharT = char, _Traits
= std::char_traits<char>]
  ':
[...]
mapout.cpp:21: instantiated from here
/usr/include/g++/bits/stream_iterator.h:141: error: no match for
'operator<<'
  in '*this->std::ostream_iterator<std::pair<const std::string,
std::string>,
  char, std::char_traits<char> >::_M_stream << __value'

I understand that ostream_iterator::operator=(rhs) calls
operator<<(ostream&, rhs) and as far as I'm concerned that operator
is declared, right after the typedef. But when two compilers
disagree with me, I usually like to admit I'm wrong.

It smells like a const problem, but it must be possible to write
std::pair<const string, string> to an ostream via an iterator. (Or
perhaps it has to do with the context of the template
instantiation?)

Am I expected to derive my own iterator? If so, why?

The workaround of course is std::transform with a function to
convert the pair to a string, but that's not efficient in terms of
human or machine cycles.

Many thanks,

--jkl

[snip]
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>

#include <iterator>
#include <algorithm>
#include <map>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

typedef map<string,string> map_ss;

ostream&
operator<<( ostream& os, const map_ss::value_type& elem );

int
main( int argc, char *argv[] )
{
   map_ss ml;

   copy( ml.begin(), ml.end(),
ostream_iterator<map_ss::value_type>(cout) );

   return 0;
}
[pins]


It's a lookup problem. The types involved in the output are all from namespace
std. Therefore, when needed, the compiler looks in namespace std for an
operator<<. There are a whole lot of them there, but none of these operators
work for std::pair.

The fact that you declared an additional operator<< on another namespace
(global) doesn't help, beacuse that namespace isn't searched as it is not
associated with any of the types involved.

Bo Persson

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